I pit the intersection near my house

The BBQ Pit
1

I hate this intersection. Hate hate hate. I used to have to cross there every day, but after we moved house my new house and my school ended up on the same quarter of land and I wiped my hands and said golly, how great is it that I’ll never have to use that intersection from hell again.

EXCEPT! Now that I’ve started uni the bus stops to and from school are once again on the other side! It sucks. It’s an intersection between two large roads, one of which has a very high speed limit indeed, and it’s almost IMPOSSIBLE to cross the left side of the road because the turn light for cars turns green at the same time as the crossing signal for pedestrians, which means you are competing with two lanes of traffic trying to turn onto the lanes you are trying to cross. The difference between a car and a pedestrian, however, is that one goes fast, is made of metal and weighs a tonne, while the other is slow, soft and squishy and the drivers know this. I have literally stood on the footpath at busy times while the light went from green back to red, just waiting for the cars to finish turning.

Today coming home from uni as the crossing light turned amber and I started getting a little tired of playing the let’s-stand-at-the-intersection-until-the-light-turns-red-again game I took advantage of a gap in traffic and walked deliberately onto the road, while keeping an eye on the car that was signalling a turn but moving extremely slowly. Before I crossed even the first lane the car suddenly accelerated and sped towards me, sounding its horn. I leapt back onto the footpath and copped a nice glare from the driver while more turning cars flowed into the road before me. WTF. Hey lady, it’s not as if I didn’t give ample indication that I was planning to cross the street, not least that I was already ON MY WAY ACROSS, weren’t you tested on the “turning cars give way to pedestrians” rule when you got your Ls? Evidently not, and neither were any of the other drivers at this intersection, nay, in all Perth if not Australia*. A pox on your house, and a pinapple for your ass. I’ve taken to crossing while the light is red, because it’s safer that way. Do you have ANY idea how wrong that is?

*Really, when I lived in Vancouver the cars stopped for you even when you weren’t obviously preparing to cross. It was very pleasant when I first got there and a real shock upon returning to Australia and remembering that things aren’t like that here. Kind of like the mountains.

2

I lived in Vancouver for a couple of years, and it certainly turns you into a complacent pedestrian. Drivers will, as you say, stop dead in the middle of the road if you even look like you’re going to cross the street, especially in the streets of the West End and West Side.

Actually, on occasions it can be kind of annoying, esepcially if it’s not at a corner, because most of the time it would be easier if the cars just kept going and allowed the pedestrian to jaywalk when a gap in the traffic comes. If a car just stops where you don’t expect, it turns into a game of “You go!” “No, you go!” which can hold up traffic and pedestrians even more.

Anyway, i have no such luxuries/problems now that i live in Baltimore. Pedestrian crosswalks might as well be abstract artworks on the road for all the good they do getting drivers to yield to pedestrians. And a “Walk” signal at a traffic is, at best, an invitation to look cautiously both ways before crossing.

I never really had the sort of trouble you describe when i lived in Australia, although i lived in a part of Sydney where there was a lot of foot traffic, and drivers had no coice but to obey traffic signals and pedestrian crossings.

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:rolleyes: No kidding. I have to cross a busy four-lane street to get to work, and it’s like playing Russian Roulette. They recently installed a pedestrain-controlled light (you push the button and the yellow flasher changes to a steady red for the traffic), which only means you have to cautiously walk and look before advancing into each lane.
I nearly got nailed today - three lanes stopped and cars in one of the middle lanes zipped right on though, horns honking.
“Excuse me, it’s a crosswalk. The light is red. You, in the car, are supposed to stop.”
Yeah, whatever.

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Huh, oddly enough, for all the poor driving skills I’ve seen in Sydney, there seems to be a lot of respect for pedestrian crossings.